• MH370 was expected to land in Beijing at 6.30am (local time) after travelling about 4350km.

News_Image_File: A woman walks past a banner filled with signatures and well-wishes for all involved with the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner MH370 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport yesterday. Picture: AP /Wong Maye-E

• There were 239 people, including 12 crew members, on board.

• The all-Malaysian crew was headed by Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, a veteran with 18,365 flying hours who had been with Malaysia Airlines since 1981. First Officer Fariq Ab Hamid, 27, joined the airline in 2007 and had 2763 hours of flying experience.

• The Boeing 777-200ER was carrying up to eight hours worth of fuel.

• The last transmission from MH370’s Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was at 1.07am when it was deliberately turned off.

• The transponder was deliberately shut down at 1.21am.

• The final words from the cockpit of “All right, good night” were delivered after ACARS was disabled.

• At roughly 1.30am, air traffic controllers situated in Subang, outside Kuala Lumpur reported that it could no longer detect MH370, placing its last coordinates at 06 55 15n 103 34 43e.

• Military radar shows the missing jet climbed to 45,000ft — higher than a Boeing 777’s approved limit — turning sharply to the west before descending unevenly to 23,000ft on the approach to the island of Penang. It then climbed back to 35,000ft, heading northwest towards the Indian Ocean.

News_Image_File: The faces of some of the missing.

• Malaysia Airlines said radar tracking detected MH370 above the tiny island Pulau Perak in the Strait of Malacca at around 2.40am.

• MH370’s last ping was sent at 8.11am — seven hours and 31 minutes after takeoff. It placed the jet in two possible flight corridors: one between Thailand and Kazakhstan, and another between Indonesia and the southern Indian Ocean.

• Malaysia’s air force has confirmed that it was possible for the plane to “ping” when it was on the ground if its electrical systems were undamaged.

• Chinese seismologists recorded a “sea floor event” and a “earthquake wave” in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam at 2.55am local time on March 8. The group, from China’s University of Science and Technology, said the “catastrophic plunge” was consistent with the plunge of a plane.

• Overnight, the number of countries involved in the search has expanded from 14 to 25, taking in those along the northern and southern search corridors, as well as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia.

• The search will now take in large tracts of land crossing 11 countries, as well as deep and remote oceans.

• No country or individual has owned up to knowing the whereabouts of MH370.